First Day of School

In Santa Ana, today was the first day of school. Preparations for this day have been going on for a couple of weeks. Karen went through all the uniforms and made a list of what pieces were needed. Last year's white shirts were bleached. Buttons have been sewn on, little tears repaired, skirts and pants taken in or let out. New pieces to complete each uniform were purchased. Notebooks were purchased. Pencil boxes and backpacks were packed and ready to go. Shoes were polished and lined up by the door.

I went up at 7:15 to take some pictures. Most of the kids that were starting back to school today were dressed, with their backpacks on sitting at the table waiting for breakfast. They ate breakfast wearing their backpacks. Everyone was so excited. Ashley, Karen, and I were snapping pictures as fast as possible. Pamela came out wearing a pair of shoes that were completely shot, holes in the soles and all. Karen told her to throw them away last week. I guess sometimes we all need to cling to something familiar. At last, it was time to leave for school. We were leaving for town to start building houses. We passed Dorian walking everyone to school, all walking in single file and smiling and waving as we passed.

We got to town to start building some of the houses that were destroyed by fire. There was high excitement there as well. We planned on building two of the five houses today. There was a lot of activity as we began to get things ready and others were clearing sites that will have new houses built in the next few days. One of the sites on which we were building today, had a lot of rocks that had to be moved. Beverly, I thought of you. There was no where near as many rocks as you and I moved that day.

One thing I immediately noticed, since our kids had just left for school, was there were dozens of kids hanging around watching. I just kept hoping that perhaps their school had not started yet. Around noon, a few kids begin to show up in uniforms. Only a very few of the children in that neighborhood were attending school. The vast majority live in families that cannot afford to send their children to school. I had tears in my eyes. I also saw a few children with pretty severe handicaps. I am not sure one little boy knew he had a handicap. His legs were mangled and twisted, yet he was running the best he could and laughing all the day. More tears.

We had a huge audience all day. Many from the community helped us, most just watched in eager anticipation as homes were being replaced. The first house went up quickly. The second one, not quite as fast. I was feeding wood to people on the back wall and got built into the house. Marc had to scale the wall and cut the door so I could be freed.

On one of the lots where a house will be built, there was a tree. Marc chainsawed it down. A huge crowd gathered to watch. If they only knew, they would have been running the other way, not gathering in closer.

Except for the tin, both houses were finished. Oh, how passionate were the prayers that were said by some of the people getting new houses. Again, my tears flowed freely. It was definitely a day of tears.

Luis, David, Jonathan, both Josues and some of their friends helped us today. We took them all to eat pizza. How fun that was, to watch those boys eat after working so hard today.

Tomorrow we tackle two more houses.

Terri